Federalism and Multilinguism

Federalism vs. Centralism

Building democracy did not change one basic difference in the
administration of France and Germany: as before under the rule of
kings France has a centralistic government, decisions are made
in the capital and the local authorities act all according to the
same directives. The federal states of Germany on the other side
have quite some autonomy with own parliaments and governments.
Switzerland's first attempt to become a modern democracy (1798-1802)
failed not least because the revolution tried to replace extremely
federalist structures by a centralist system.

The reasons why centralism works perfectly in some countries while
others cannot think of anything else than federalism are not obvious.
Evidently it is not a question of absolute size - there are big as
well as small nations in both groups.

There are good arguments for both systems: The centralistic system
allows to implement efficient standardized solutions, opens markets
to competition and facilitates mobility. The federalist system
allows to tailor laws and administrative processes to match the
individual needs and mentalities of different regions and may reduce
costs by focusing state activity on what the regional population
really wants.

Federalism, Minorities and Multilinguism

Federalism has one advantage that is not easy to assess,
but may still be very important: In the federalist system, decisions
are transferred to the lowest level possible. People are likely to
be more directly involved in decision-making, the credibility of
the system is increased. The same decision, discussed in a regional
parliament, may be far better accepted by the population than it
would have been when taken in a far away capital.

As the key point is transferring decisions to the regions, federalism
may play a key role in reducing conflicts between ethnical and/or
religious groups as long as they live in separate regions.
In Switzerland most people are convinced that federalism with 26
autonomous cantons does help to reduce the dominance of the German
speaking majority (74%) over the French and Italian speaking minorities
and allows rural and urban areas to set different priorities.

The federal system will not show these specific beneficial results,
however, if a minority group spreads out all over a country.
For this case other models of political participation are needed to
prevent frustration and open conflict.